1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to the field of project information management, and more particularly to facilitating the communication of instructions, diagrams, revisions, notes, and/or other information pertaining to a project.
2. Related Art
Many industries utilize project documents in the planning, development, building, and/or maintenance stages of systems and objects, including houses, buildings, facilities, devices, and many other products. A project document may be any diagram, schematic, floor plan, layout, specification, instruction set, or other type of document that describes components and/or provides dimensions, positions, connections and/or other relationships between the components that comprise the product. A project document is often a working document, meaning that changes made to the product are reflected as revisions to the document. Ideally, when a project participant makes a change to the product, the project document is revised and reprinted for distribution to all of the project participants. Often, managing document change (i.e., ensuring that when a change is made, everyone involved receives an updated project document) is vital for cost effectively completing the project.
The construction industry is an example of an industry in which managing document change is critical. A construction project is managed through a set of approved project documents (hereinafter “plans”). The approved set of plans are often many pages of large sheets of paper printed by a large format printer. Each project participant (e.g., master carpenter, master plumber, master electrician, landscaper, etc.) receives a copy of the set of plans.
As the project progresses, it is not unusual for a project participant to make a change to their area of the construction project and make revisions to their own set of plans. The revisions are often made by handwritten notations or sketches on the set of plans in their possession. Project participants also often annotate their respective sets of plans with information related to the required changes to their and/or other areas of the project, problems that were discovered, solutions implemented, and many other types of instructions and notes. Ideally, plan revisions are collected and communicated to other project participants by way of issuing new sets of plans (revisions) to all of the project participants.
The task of tracking revision numbers and ensuring that all project participants are working off the same, latest version of plans at any given time is often costly and can be difficult to achieve. For example, project participants may be reluctant to handover their set of plans if they contain annotations or other notes. Project participants may also be burdened with having to copy their annotations/notes from a former set of plans to a reissued set of plans. Differences in delivery dates/times of revised plan sets to all of the different participants can cause delays and problems that affect everyone. Also, printing multiple revised plan sets and delivering them to the project participants can be costly and a source of error. An improved approach is desirable.